Following their exciting 0-15 to 1-12 draw with Meath in Pearse Stadium on Sunday, the Galway footballers head for Armagh this weekend for a round five clash with Kieran McGeeney’s men at the Athletic Grounds (2pm ).
Galway are on a good run of form against the Ulster men, having beaten them in last year’s All-Ireland qualifiers (1-12 to 0-12 ) and in the 2014 Allianz Football League dvision two clash (2-14 to 1-13 ).
Armagh are bottom of the division two table after three defeats and have the second worst defensive record in the group behind Laois. They were well tanked by Cavan last Saturday and went down by 3-18 to 0-10.
One would expect Galway to have too much for Armagh in three days’ time, but as Kevin Walsh pointed out after last weekend’s draw, each team in division two is well capable of taking points off each other on any given day.
That said, if Galway have genuine aspirations of playing division one football next season, this is a game they should, and need to win.
Assuming Tyrone are a “shoo-in” for promotion, that only leaves one space left on the elevator to the higher ranks for 2016 and Galway are currently in pole position for that other spot.
The Galway senior management team will also have to keep their fingers crossed that Enda Tierney, Eamonn Brannigan and Peter Cooke will come through tomorrow evening's U-21 clash with Roscommon unscathed.
Even then, they will be pretty wrecked after 60 minutes of high intense championship action and asking them to subsequently tog out against Armagh would not be ideal.
Thankfully both Gary Sice and Danny Cummins saw some action last weekend, and both did well on their introduction at half time and they should be available for more game time this Sunday.
Sice in particular did more than enough to merit a starting jersey this weekend as he added a lot to the forward division when he came on.
Beating Armagh away is not an easy task, but nevertheless, anything but two points from Sunday’s game would be disappointing.
With the correct focus, application and work-rate Galway can raid the Orchard for a crucial two points and put themselves in a strong position to set up a big show-down with Fermanagh and Cavan in the final two rounds to see who might join Tyrone in the promotion race.
